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Jje VoL 8, No. 110. M»ylS,1888. Annual Snbecription, »2S.0O. ^ A 

FALSE HOPES 



I 



GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. 



=xx:NEW YORK; 



+ Tol\N • W • I, oV£ L, L, • CO/APAHY+ 

^ras^^s^—J'-g- 14. 6>1^ Vl&EY STREET-, 




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1 A neat cloth case for this volume can be obtained from any bookseller or newsdealer, price 10c 



JTJST PUBLISHED: 



SCIENCE IN SHORT CHAPTERS 

By W.MATTIETJ WILLIAMS, F.R.A.S. F.C.S. 

Autlwr qf '" The Fuel of the Sun," " A Simple Treatise on Heat," &c. 

BEING No. 80 OF LOVER'S LIBRARY, 

12mo, handsome paper covers, Price, 20 Cents. 

"Mr. Mattieu Williams is undoubtedly able to present scientific subjects to 
the popular mind with much clearness and force : and these essays may t>e 
read with advantage by those, who, without having had special training, are yet 
sufficiently intelligent to take interest in the movement 01 events in the scientific 
world. ' '—Academy. 

"The title of Mr. Mattieu Williams' 'Science m Short Chapters' exactly 
explains its subject. Clear and simple, these brief reprints from all sorts of 
periodicals are just what Angelina may profitably read to Edwin while he is 
sorting his papers, or trimming the lamps, if (like some highly domesticated 
Edwins) he insists on doing that ticklish bitof house-work himself."— G raphic. 

" The papers are not mere rechauffes of common knowledge. Almost all of 
them are marked by original thought, andmany of them contain demonstrations 
or apergus of considerable scientific value." — Pall Mall Gazette, 

"The chapters range from such subjects as science and spiritualism to the 
consumption of smoke. They include a dissertation on iron filings in tea, and 
they discuss the action of frost on water-pipes and on building materials. The 
volume begins with an article on the fuel of the sun, and before it is concluded 
it deals with Count Kumford's cooking stoves. All these subjects, and a great 
many more, are treated in a pleasant, informative manner. Mr. Williams knows 
what he is talking about, and he says what he has to say in such a way as to 
prevent any possible misconception. The book will be prized by all who desire 
tohavefiound information on such subjects as those with which it deals." — 
Scotsman. 

"To the scientific world Mr. Williams is best known by his solar studies, 
but here he is not writing so much for scientists as for the general public. It has 
been the aim of his life to popularise science, and his articles are so treated that 
his readers may become interested in them and find in their perusal a mental 
recreation."— Sunday-school Chronicle. 

" We highly recommend this most entertaining and vauable collection of 
papers. They combine clearness and simplicity, and are not wanting iu philoso- 
phy likewise." — Tablet. 

LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL, 

His Life, Times, Battlefields, and Contemporaries, by 

PAXTON HOOD, 

Autftorof " Christmas Evans," " Thomas Carlyle," "Romance of 
Biography " &c. 

Being OSTo. 73 of H.O'VET-iIl.'S XjIBB?,-A.K,"Z*, 

12mo, handsome paper covers, IS CENTS. 

This is a popular biography of the career of Oliver Cromwell, which will be 
welcomed by those who are unable to pursue the stirring history of his life and 
times, in the elaborate volumes to which the stndent is at present referred. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent free of poetag* on 
receipt o' price by the publishers. 

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LOY ELL'S LI BRARY 



NUMBERS NOW READY i 



1. Hyperion, by Longfellow, - .20 

2. Outre-Mer, by Longfellow. - .20 

3. The Happy Boy, by Bjornson, - .10 

4. Arne, by Bjornson, - - - .10 

5. Frankenstein, by Mrs. Shelley, .10 

6. The Last of the Mohicans, - .20 

7. Clytie, by Joseph Hatton, - .20 

8. The Moonstone, by Collins Pt. I .10 

9. Do. Part II, - - - - .10 

10. Oliver Twist, by Dickens - - .20 

11. The Coming Race : or the New 

Utopia, by Lord Lytton, - .10 

12. Lelia ; or the Siege of Granada, .10 

13. The Three Spaniards, Walker, .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks Un- 

veiled, by Robert Houdin, - .20 

15. L'Abbe Constantin. by Halevy, .20 

16. Freckles, by R. F. Redcliff, - .20 

17. The Dark Colleen,- - - .20 

18. They Were Married ! - - - .10 

19. Seekers after God, by Farrar, .20 

20. The Spanish Nun, - - - .10 

21. The Green Mountain Boys, - .20 

22. Fleurette. by Eugene Scribe, - .20 

23. Second Thoughts, - - - .20 

24. The New Magdalen, by Collins, .20 

25. Divorce, by Margaret Lee, - .20 

26. Life of Washington, - .- - .20 

27. Social Etiquette, - - - .15 

28. Single Heart and Double Face, .10 

29. Irene; or the Lonely Manor, - .20 

30. Vice Versa, by F. Anstey, - .20 

31. Ernest Maltravers, by Lytton, - .20 

32. The Haunted House, and Cal- 

deron the Courtier, Lytton - .10 

33. John Halifax, by Miss Mulock, .20 

34. 800 Leagues on the Amazon - .10 

35. The Cryptogram,by Jules Verne, .10 

36. Life of Marion, - - - .20 

37. Paul and Virginia, - - - .10 

38. Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens, .20 

39. The Hermits, by Kingsley, - .20 

40. AnAdventure in Thule, and 

/Marriage of Moira Fergus, - .10 

41. A Marriage in Hish Life, - - .20 

42. Robin, by Mrs. Parr - - - .20 

43. Two on a Tower, by Hardy, - .20 

44. Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson, - .10 

45. Alice : or the Mysteries, being 

Part II of Ernest Maltravers, .20 

46. Duke of Kandos, by A. Mathey, .20 

47. Baron Munchausen - - ■ .10 

48. A Princess of Thulc. - - - .20 

49. The Secret Despatch, Grant, .20 

50. Earlv Days of Christianity, by 

Canon Farrar, D. D., Part I, .20 

" II, .20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield - - - .10 

52. Progress and Poverty, - - .20 

53. The Spv, by J. F. Cooper, - .20 

54. East Lynne, by Mrs. Wood, - .20 

55. A Strange Story, by Lytton, - .20 

56. Adam Be.de, by Geo. Eliot, P't I, .15 

" " " " "II, .15 

57. The Golden Shaft, by Gibbon, .20 

58. Portia; or by Passions Rocked, .20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii, - - .20 

60. The Two Duchesses, - - - .20 

61. Tom Brown at Rugby, - - .20 

62. The Wooing O't, by Mrs. Alex- 

ander. Part I, - - - - .15 

Do Part II. - - - - .15 



The Vendetta, by Balzac, 
Hypatia, by Kingsley, Part I, - 

Do. Part II, ---*". 
Selma, by Mrs. J. G. Smith, - 
Margaret and Her Bridesmaids, 
Horse Shoe Robinson, Part I - 

Do. Do. Partn - 

Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, - 
Amos Barton, by Geo. Eliot, - 
The Berber, by W. S. Mayo, .- 
Silas Marner, by Geo. Eliot, 
The Q.ueen of the County, 
Life of Cromwell, by Hood, 
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, 
Child's History of England, 
Molly Bawn, by The Duchess, 
Pillone, -.--. 
Phyllis, by The Duchess, - 
Romola, by Geo. Eliot, ParW, 

Do. Do. Part II, 

Science in Short Chapters, 
Zanoni, by Lord Lytton, - 
A Daughter of Heth, . 
The Right andWrongUses of the 

Bible, Rev. R. Heber Newton, 
Night and Morning, Part I, 

Do. Do. Part II, - 

Shandon Bells, by Wm. Black, - 
Monica, by The Dr 
Heart and Science. - 
The Golden Calf, 
Dean's Daughter, 
Mrs. Geoffrey, by The : 
Pickwick Papers, Part I, - 
Do. Do. Part II, - 
Airy Fairy Lilian, 
Macleod of Dare, 
Tempest Tossed, Part I, - 

Do. " II, - 

Letters From High Latitudes, - 
Gideon Fleyce, by Lucy, 
India and Ceylon, by E.Haeckel, 
The Gypsy Queen, 
The Admiral's Ward, by Mrs. 

Alexander, - 
Nimport, by Bynner, Part I, 
Do. " II, 

Harry Holbrooke, by Sir Randal 

H. Roberts, Bart, 
Tritons, by Bynner, Part I, 
Do. -'II, 

Let Nothing You Dismay, by 

Walter Besant, 
Lady Audley's Secret, by Miss 

M. E. Braddon, 
Woman's Place To-day,by Lillie 

Devereux Blake, - 
Dunallan, Grace Kennedy, P't I 

Do. Do. " II 

House Keeping and Home Mak- 
ing, by Marion Hailand, 
No New Thing, by W. E. Norris 
The Spoopenayke Papers, by 

Stanley Huntley, - 
False Hopes, by Goldwin Smith, 
Capital and Labor, by Kellogg, 
Wanda, by Ouida, Part I, - 

Do. " II, - - 

More Words about the Bible, 

by Kev. James Bush, 
Loys, Lord Beresford, by The 

Duchess, .... 



FALSE HOPES: 



FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND SEMI-SOCIALISTIC, 



BRIEFLY ANSWERED. 



%TL %&ftXZ&&. 



G O L D W I N SMITH, D. C. L. 



NEW YORK : 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

. TORONTO : WILLING & WILLIAMSON. 
i88q. • 



LOVELL'S LI BRARY. 



NUMBERS NOW READY: 



1. Hyperion, by Longfellow, 

2. Outre-Mer, by Longfellow. 

3. The Happy Boy, by Bjornson, - 

4. Arne, by Bjornson, - 

5. Frankenstein, by Mrs. Shelley, 

6. The Last of the Mohicans, 

7. Clytie, by Joseph Hatton, 

8. The Moonstone, by Collins Pt. I 

9. Do. Part II, .... 
30. Oliver Twist, by Dickens - 

11. The Coming Pace : or the New 

Utopia, by Lord Lytton, 

12. Lelia ; or the Siege of Granada, 

13. The Three Spaniards, Walker, 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks Un- 

veiled, by Robert Houdin, - 

15. L'Abbe Constantin. by Halevy, 

16. Freckles, by R. F. Redcliff, - 

17. The Dark Colleen,- 

18. They Were Married ! - 

19. Seekers after God, by Farrar, 

20. The Spanish Nun, 

21. The Green Mountain Boys, 

22. Fleurette. by Eugene Scribe, - 

23. Second Thoughts, 

24. The New Magdalen, by Collins, 

25. Divorce, by Margaret Lee, 

26. Life of Washington, - . - 

27. Social Etiquette, 

28. Single Heart and Double Face, 

29. Irene; or the Lonely Manor, 

30. Vice Versa, by F. Anstey, 

31. Ernest Maltravers, by Lytton, - 

32. The Haunted House, and Cal- 

deron the Courtier, Lytton - 

33. John Halifax, by Miss Mulock, 

34. 800 Leagues on the Amazon 

35. The Cryptogram,by Jules Verne, 

36. Life of Marion, - 

37. Paul and Virginia, 

38. Tale of Two Cities, by Dickens, 

39. The Hermits, by Kingsley, 

40. AnAdventure in Thule, and 

Marriage of Moira Fergus, - 

41. A Marriage in High Life, - 

42. Robin, by Mrs. Parr - 

43. Two on a Tower, by Hardy, 

44. Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson, - 

45. Alice : or the Mysteries, being 

Part II of Ernest Maltravers, 

46. Duke of Kandos, by A. Mathey, 

47. Baron Munchausen - 

48. A Princess of Thulc. - 

49. The Secret Despatch, Grant, 

50. Earlv Days of Christianity, by 

Canon Farrar, D. D., Part I, 
" II, 

51. Vicar of Wakefield - 

52. Progress and Poverty, 

53. The Spy, by J. F. Cooper, 

54. East Lynne, by Mrs. Wood, 

55. A Strange Story, bv Lytton, - 

56. Adam Be.de, by Geo'. Eliot, P't I, 

" " " " "II, 

57. The Golden Shaft, by Gibbon, 

58. Portia; or by Passions Rocked, 

59. Last Davs of Pompeii, 

60. The Two Duchesses, - 

61. Tom Brown at Rugby, 

62. The Wooing O't, by Mrs. Alex- 

ander, Part I, - 

Do Part II. - - - - 



.20 


64. 


.10 




.10 


65. 


.10 


66. 


.20 


67. 


.20 




.10 


68. 


.10 


69. 


.20 


70. 




71. 


.10 


72. 


.10 


73. 


.20 


74; 




75. 


.20 


76. 


.20 


77. 


.20 


78. 


.20 


79. 


.10 




.20 


80. 


.10 


81. 


.20 


82. 


.20 


83. 


.20 




.20 


84. 


.20 




.20 


85, 


.15 


86. 


.10 


87. 


.20 


88. 


.20 


89. 


.20 


90 




91. 


.10 




.20 


92 


.10 


93 


.10 


94. 


.20 




.10 


95. 


.20 


96. 


.20 


97. 




98. 


.10 


99. 


.20 




.20 


100. 


.20 




.10 


101. 


.20 


102. 


.20 




.10 


103. 


.20 




.20 


104. 


.20 


105. 


.20 




.10 


106. 


.20 




.20 


107. 


.20 




.20 


108 


.15 


109 


.15 




.20 


110 


.20 


111. 


.20 


112. 


.20 




.20 


113. 


.15 




.15 





The Vendetta, by Balzac, 
Hypatia, by Kingsley, Part I, -- 

Do. Part II, - - 

Selma, by Mrs. J. G. Smith, - 
Margaret and Her Bridesmaids, 
Horse Shoe Robinson, Part I - 

Do. Do. Part II - 

Gulliver's Travels, by Swift, - 
Amos Barton, by Geo. Eliot, - 
The Berber,by W. S. Mayo, .- 
Silas Marner, by Geo. Eliot, 
The Q.ueen of the County, 
Life of Cromwell, by Hood, 
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, 
Child's History of England, 
Molly Bawn, by The Duchess, 

Pillone, 

Phyllis, by The Duchess, - 
Romola, by Geo. Eliot, ParM, 

Do. Do. Part II, 

Science in Short Chapters, 
Zanoni, by Lord Lytton, - 
A Daughter of Heth, . 
The Ri ght andWrong Uses of the 

Bible, Rev. R. Heber Newton, 
Night and Morning, Part I, 

Do. Do. Part II, - 

Shandon Bells, by Wm. Black, - 
Monica, by The Duchess, - 
Heart and Science. - 
The Golden Calf, 
Dean's Daughter, 
Mrs. Geoffrey, by The Duchess, 
Pickwick Papers, Part I, - 
Do. Do. Part II, - 
Airy Fairy Lilian, 
Mncleod of Dare, - 
Tempest Tossed, Part I, - 

Do. " II, - 

Letters From High Latitudes, - 
Gideon Fleyce, by Lucy, 
India and Ceylon, by E.Haeckel, 



The Gvpsy Q.ueen 
- 'ral's W 



by Mrs. 



The Admiral 

Alexander, 

Nimport, by Bynner, Part I, 

Do. " II 

Harry Holbrooke, by Sir Randal 

H. Roberts, Bart., 
Tritons, by Bynner, Part I, 
Do. ■' II, 

Let Nothing You Dismay, by 

Walter Besant, 
Lady Audley's Secret, by Miss 

M. E. Braddon, 
Woman's Place To-day ,by Liliie 

Devereux Blake, - 
Dunallan, Grace Kennedy, P't I 

Do. Do. " II 

House Keeping and Home Mak- 
ing, by Marion Harland, 
No New Thing, by W. E. Norris 
The Spoopendyke Papers, by 

Stanley Huntley, - 
False Hopes, by Goldwin Smith, 
Capital and Labor, by Kellogg, 
Wanda, lov Ouida, Part I, - 

Do. " II, - - 

More Words about the Bible, 

by Rev. James Bush, 
Loys, Lord Beresford, by The 



FALSE HOPES: 



FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND SEMI-SOCIALISTIC, 



BRIEFLY ANSWERED. 



%xi gi&ctoss. 



G O L D W I N SMITH, D. C. L. 



NEW YORK : 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

TORONTO : WILLING & WILLIAMSON. 
I88q. ■ 



HA 

•s- 

C • 



Copyright, 1883, by 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 






FALSE HOPES: 

or, FALLACIES, SOCIALISTIC AND 

SEMI -SOCIALISTIC, BRIEFLY 

EXAMINED. 



The belief that the lot of man can be equal- 
ized by economical change, and the desire to 
make the attempt, are at present strong : they 
are giving birth to a multitude of projects, and 
in Europe are threatening society with convul- 
sions. Eagerness to grasp a full share of the 
good things of this world has been intensified 
by the departure, or decline, of the religious 
faith which held out to the unfortunate in this 



2 FALSE HOPES. 

life the hope of indemnity in another. " If to- 
morrow we "die, and death is the end, to-day let 
us eat and drink; and if we have not the 
wherewithal, let us see if we cannot take from 
those who have." So multitudes are saying in 
their hearts, and philosophy has not \ et fur- 
nished a clear reply. Popular education has 
gone far enough to make the masses think — 
not far enough to make them think deeply; 
they read what falls in with their aspirations, 
and their minds run in the groove thus formed ; 
flattering theories make the rapidly, and, like 
religious doctrines, are imbibed without ex- 
amination by credulous and uncritical minds. 
The numbers of Communists, or Socialists, in 
any country, is as yet small, compared with that 
of the population at large ; yet the doctrines 
spread, chiefly among the artisan class, which 
is active-minded, is gathered in commercial 
centres, lives on wages about the rate of which 



FALSE HOPES. 3 

there are frequent disputes, is filled with the 
thirst of pleasure by ever-present temptations, 
and stirred to envy by the perpetual sight of 
wealth. Envy is a potent factor in the move- 
ment, and is being constantly inflamed by the 
ostentation of the vulvar rich, who thus de- 
serve, fully as much as the revolutionary arti- 
sans, the name of a dangerous class. This 
is the main source of that extreme sort of 
Communism which may be called' Satanism 3 
as it seeks, not to reconstruct, but to destroy 
and to destroy not only existing institutions, 
but established morality — social, domestic, and 
personal — putting evil in place of good. Satan- 
ism manifests itself in different countries under 
various forms and names — such as Nihilism, 
Ihtransigentism, Petrolean Communism, the 
Dynamite wing of Fenianism ; Nihilism being 
defined with more startling sharpness than the 

* One of the French Communists, it seems, rejoices in the name 
Lucifer Satan Vercingetorix. 



4 FALSE HOPES. 

rest, though the destructive spirit of all is the 
same. Social innovation is everywhere more 
or less allied with, and impelled by, the poli- 
tical and religious revolution which fills the civ- 
ilized world ; while the revolution in science has 
helped to excite the spirit of change in every 
sphere, little as Utopianism is akin to science. 
No man, with a brain and a heart can fail 
to be penetrated with a sense of the unequal 
distribution of wealth, or to be willing to try 
any experiment which may hold out a rea- 
sonable hope of putting an end to poverty. By 
the success of such an experiment, the happi- 
ness of the rich — of such, at least, of them 
as are good men — would be increased far more 
than their riches would be diminished. But 
only the Nihilists would desire blindly 'to 
plunge society into chaos. It is plainly be- 
yond our power to alter the fundamental con- 
ditions of our being. There are inequalities 



FALSE HOPES. 5 

greater even than those of wealth, which are 
fixed not by human lawgivers but by nature 
such as those of health, strength, and intel- 
lectual power; and these, almost inevitably, 
draw other inequalities with them. The" most 
violent shocks given to the social system — 
such as the French Revolution — have over- 
turned unjust governments and laws, though 
at the immediate cost of much confusion, im- 
poverishment, and suffering; but they have 
failed materially to diminish the inequalities 
of wealth, as the French Communists them- 
selves, by their passionate complaints, declare. 
Injustice is human, and where inequality is 
the fiat, not of man, but of a power above 
man, it is idle, for any practical purpose, to 
assail it as injustice. The difference between 
a good and a bad workman is, partly at least, 
the act of nature ; and to give the same wages 
to the good workman and the bad, as Com- 



6 FALSE HOPES. 

munists propose, might be just from some 
superhuman point of view : from the only point 
of view to which humanity can attain, it would 
be unjust. 

The plans of innovation proposed vary much 
in character and extent Those which here 
will be briefly passed in review are Com- 
munism, Socialism, Nationalization of Land, 
Strikes, plans ior emancipating Labor from 
the dominion of Capital, and theories of in- 
novation with regard to Currency and Banks, 
the most prominent of which is Greenbackism, 
Or - the belief in paper money. This seems 
a motley group, but it will be seen on exam- 
ination, that there runs through the whole 
the same hope of bettering the condition of 
the masses without increase of industry, or of 
the substantial elements of wealth. Through 
several there runs a tendency to violence and 
confiscation. It may be safely said, that all the 



FALSE HOPES. 7 

movements draw their adherents from minds 
of the same speculative class, and that indus- 
trial revolution is not often recruited from the 
ranks of steady and prosperous industry. 

By Communism is here meant the proposal 
to abrogate altogether the institution of prop- 
erty. The reply is that property is not an insti- 
tution but a fixed element of human nature. A 
state of things in which a man would not think 
that what he had made for himself was his own, 
is unknown to experience and beyond the range 
of our conceptions. The author of the saying 
that property is theft affirmed, by his use of the 
word theft, the rightful existence of property, 
and it is highly probable that as a literary man 
he would-have asserted his claim to copyright, 
which is property in its subtlest form. In early 
times property in land was not individual but 
tribal ; it is so still in Afghanistan, while in 
Russia and Hindostan it is vested in the village 



8 FALSE HOPES. 

community which assigns lots to the individual 
cultivators : still it is property : squat upon the 
land of an Afghan tribe, or of a village com- 
munity, Russian or Hindoo, in the name of hu- 
manity, and you will be ejected as certainly as 
if you had squatted on the land of an English 
Squire. In primitive hunting-grounds and pas- 
tures, property was less definite ; yet even these 
would have been defended against a rival tribe. 
Property in clothes, utensils, arms, must always 
have been individual. Declare that everything 
belongs to the community ; still government must 
allot each citizen his rations; as soon as he re- 
ceives them the rations will be his own, and if 
another tries to take them he will resist, and by 
his resistance affirm the principle of individual 
property. 

Religious societies, in the fervor of their 
youth, have for a short time sought to seal the 
brotherhood of their members by instituting 



FALSE HOPES. 9 

within their own circle a community of goods. 
The primitive Christians did this, but they never 
thought of abolishing property or proclaiming 
the communistic principle to society at large. 
Paul, in is Epistles, on the contrary, distinctly 
ratifies the ordinary principle of industry. 
" While the land remained," says Peter to An- 
anias, " did it not remain thine own ; and after 
it was sold was it not in thy power ? " Christian 
communism, so-called, was in fact merely a 
benefit fund or club : it was also short-lived ; 
as was the communism of the Monastic orders, 
which soon gave way to individual proprietor- 
ship on no ordinary scale in the persons of the 
abbots. 

Associations, called communistic, have been 
founded in the United States. But these have been 
nothing more than common homes for a small 
number of people, living together as one house- 
hold on a joint-stock fund. Their relations to 



10 FALSE HOPES. 

the community at large have been of the ordi- 
nary commercial kind. The Oneida Community 
owned works carried on by hired labor and 
dealt with the outside world like any other 
manufacturer ; nor did it make any attempt to 
propagate communistic opinions. A religious 
dictatorship seems essential to the unity and 
peace of these households ; but where they have 
prospered economically, the secret of their suc- 
cess has been the absence of children, which 
limited their expenses and enabled them to save 
money. Growing wealthy they have ceased to 
proselytize, and, if -celibacy was kept up, have 
become tontines. They afford no proof what- 
ever of the practicability of communism as a 
universal system. 

Slavery has its whip ; but, saving this, no 
general incentive to labor other than property 
has yet been devised. Communists think that 
they can rely on love of the community, and 



FALSE HOPES. n 

they point to the case of the soldier who they 
say does his duty voluntarily from a sense of 
military honor. It is replied that so far from be- 
ing voluntary, a soldier's duty is prescribed by a 
code of exceptional severity, enforced by penal- 
ties of the sternest kind. 

That the family and all its affections are 
closely bound up with property is evident ; and 
the Nihilist is consistent in seeking to destroy 
property and the family together. 

Tracing property to its source, we find it has 
its origin, as a general rule, not in theft but in 
labor, either of the hand or of the brain, and in 
the frugality by which the fruits of labor have 
been saved. In the case of property which has 
been inherited, we may have to go back genera- 
tions in order to reach this fact, but we come to 
the fact at last. Wherever the labor has been 
honest, good we may be sure has been done, 
and the wealth of society at large, as well as 



12 FALSE HOPES. 

that of the worker, has been increased in the 
process. Some property has, of course, been 
acquired by bad means, such as stock-jobbing 
or gambling; and if we could only distinguish 
this from the rest, confiscation might be just ; 
for there is nothing sacred in property apart 
from the mode in which it has been acquired. 
But discrimination is impossible : all that we 
can do is to discourage as much as possible 
bad modes of acquisition. Hereditary wealth, 
owned by those who have themselves not 
worked for it, strikes us as injustice. But what 
can be done ? Bequest is merely a death- 
bed gift : if we forbid a man to bequeath his 
wealth, he will give it away in his lifetime, 
rather than leave it to be confiscated, and a 
great inducement to saving will be lost. 

That wealth is often abused, fearfully abused, 
is too true : so are strength, intellect, power and 
opportunities of all kinds. It is also true that 



FALSE HOPES. 13 

nothing can be more miserable, or abject, than 
to live in idleness by the sweat of other men's 
brows. But this is felt, in an increasing degree, 
by the better natures ; private fortunes are held 
more and more subject to the claims of the 
community : a spontaneous communism is thus 
- making way, and notably, as every observer 
will see, in the United States. In the mean- 
time, though the sight of wealth, no doubt, adds 
a moral sting to poverty, its increase, instead of 
aggravating, improves the lot even of the poor- 
est. In wealthy communities, the destitute are 
relieved : in the savage state they die. 

By Socialism is meant the theory of those who 
for free markets, competition, liberty of private 
contract, and all the present agencies of com- 
merce, propose in various degrees to introduce 
the regulation and payment of industry by " the 
State." What is the State ? People seem to 
suppose that there is something outside and 



14 FALSE HOPES. 

above the members of the community which 
answers to this name, and which has duties and 
a wisdom of its own. But duties can attach 
only to persons, wisdom can reside only in 
brains. The State, when you leave abstractions 
and come to facts, is nothing but the Q-overn- 
ment, which can have no duties but those 
which the Constitution assigns it, nor any wis- 
dom but that which is infused into it by the 
mode of appointment or election. What, then, 
is the government which Socialism would set 
upland to which it would intrust powers infin- 
itely greater than those which any ruler has 
ever practically wielded, with duties infinitely 
harder than those which the highest political 
wisdom has ever dared to undertake ? This is 
the first question which the Socialist has to 
answer. His school denounces all existing 
governments, and all those of the past, as in- 
competent and unjust. What does he propose 



FALSE HOPES. 1 5 

to institute in their room, and by what process, 
elective or of any other kind, is the change to 
be made ? Where will he find the human ma- 
terial out of which he can frame this earthly 
Providence, infallible and incorruptible, whose 
award shall be unanimously accepted as superior 
to all existing guarantees for industrial justice ? 
The chiefs of industry are condemned before- 
hand as tyrannical capitalists. Will the artisan 
submit willingly to the autocratic rule of his 
brother ? This question, once more, presents ' 
itself on the threshold and demands an answer. 
To accept an unlimited and most searching 
despotism without knowing in whose hands it 
is to be entrusted would evidently be sheer mad- 
ness. It is idle to form theories, whether 
economical or social, without considering the 
actual circumstances under which they are to 
be applied, and the means and possibilities of 
carrying them into effect. 



16 FALSE HOPES. 

Despotic the Socialist's government must be, 
in order to secure submission to its assignment 
of industrial parts and to its award of wages, 
which are not to be measured by the amount or 
quality of the work, but by some higher law of 
benevolence, as well as to enable it to compel 
indolence to work at all. Its power, prac- 
tically,- must be made to extend beyond the 
sphere of industry to those of social, domes- 
tic and individual life. Resistance to its 
decrees could not be permitted, nor could it 
be deposed in case of tyranny or abuse. 
Liberty, in short, would be at an end, and with 
liberty progress. All Utopias are assumed by 
their inventors to be the last birth of time. 

Assignment of manual labor and payment 
for its performance by a paternal government 
are conceivable, though not practically feasible. 
But how could men be told off for intellectual 
labor, for scientific research, for invention? 



FALSE HOPES. 17 

Could the Socialistic ruler pick out a Shake- 
speare, a Newton, or an Arkwright, set him to 
his work and pay him while he was about it ? 
Socialism would be barbarism. Of the artisans 
who applaud these theories all whose trades 
minister to literature, art, or refinement would 
be in danger of rinding themselves without 
work. 

Socialists often propose to cut up the in- 
dustrial and commercial world into phalan- 
steries, or sections of some kind, for the purposes 
of their organization. But industry and com- 
merce are networks covering the whole globe. 
To what phalanstery would the sailors, the 
railway men, and the traders between different 
countries, be assigned ? 

Take any complex product of human labor, 
say, a piece of cotton goods worth a cent. 
Let the Socialist trace out, as far as thought 
will go, the industries which, in various ways, 



1 8 FALSE HOPES. 

and in different parts of the world, have con- 
tributed to the production, including the mak- 
ing of machinery, ship-building, and all the 
employments and branches of trade ancillary to 
these : Jet him consider how, by the operation 
of economic law, under the system of industrial 
liberty, the single cent is distributed among all 
these industries justly, "even to the estimation 
of a hair," and then let him ask himself whether 
his government, or his group of governments, 
is likely to do better than nature. If it does, it 
wilL indeed, be a miracle of political construc- 
tion. 

The action of government in regard to in- 
dustry has been of late a good deal enlarged in 
the way of Factory Acts, sanitary regulations, 
and provisions for the safety of workmen. Pos- 
sibly it may be susceptible of still further 
enlargement, with benefit to the community. 
But at each step you incur, especially under 



FALSE HOPES. 19 

the elective and party system, new dangers 
of error, abuse, and corruption. Division of 
labor, as Adam Smith has shown, marks the 
progress of civilization ; and a centralization, 
which should reduce all functions to those of a 
single organ, would be not an advance, but 
a degradation, in the political as in the animal 
world. The National workshops at Paris were 
a complete failure, and even the Government 
dockyards in England, though rendered neces- 
sary by the exigencies of national defence, 
are conducted less economically than private 
ship-yards. 

A special form of Socialism is Agrarianism, 
which demands the Nationalization of Land. 
This has received an impulse from recent legis- 
lation for Ireland. Not tliat the Irish tenant 
farmer is an agrarian socialist, or a socialist 
of any kind : what he wants is to oust the land- 
lord, and have the farm to himself; if you 



20 FALSE HOPES. 

demand, as a member of the community, a 
share of his land, he will give you six feet of it; 
he exacts a heavy rent for a little croft from the 
farm laborer in his employment. The sirens of 
Nationalization have sung to him in vain. Nor 
did the framers of the Land Act intend to 
abrogate or assail private property in land: 
they intended only to adjust by legislation 
a dispute between two classes of property- 
holders which threatened the peace of the 
State. But the natural consequences have 
been a general disturbance of ideas, and an in- 
crease of hope and activity among the apostles 
of agrarian plunder. 

By these theorists it is proposed to confis- 
cate, either openly, or under the thin disguise 
of a predatory use of the taxing power, every 
man's freehold, even the farm which the settler 
has just reclaimed by the sweat of his own 
brow from the wilderness; and it is emphati- 



FALSE HO FES. 21 

cally added, with all the exultation of insolent 
injustice, that no compensation is to be allowed. 
That the State has, by the most solemn and 
repeated guarantees, ratified private proprietor- ; 
ship and undertaken to protect it, matters 
nothing ; nor even that it has itself recently 
sold the land to the proprietor, signed the deed 
of sale, and received the payment. That such 
views can be propounded anywhere but in 
a robber's den or a lunatic asylum, still more, 
that they can find respectful hearers, is a proof 
that the economical world is in a state of curi- 
ous perturbation. 

In the first place, how do the Nationaliz- 
es mean to carry into effect their schemes of 
confiscation? They can hardly suppose that 
large classes will allow themselves to be 
stripped of all they possess, and turned out 
with their wives and children to beggary, with- 
out striking a blow for their freeholds. There 



22 FALSE HOPES. 

will at once be civil war, in which it is by 
no means certain that the agrarian philosopher 
and his disciples would get the better of 
the owners and tillers of land. Utopians forget 
that they have to deal with the world as it 
is. 

In the second place, as it is to the govern- 
ment that all land, or the rent of all land, is 
to be made over, we must ask the agrarian 
socialist, as well as the general socialist, what 
form of government he means to give us? The 
theorists themselves denounce, as loudly as any 
one, the knavery and corruption of the poli- 
ticians, who would hardly be made pure and 
upright simply by putting the management 
of fabulous revenues into their hands. Paying 
rent for all real estate to the Bosses would cer- 
tainly be a singular way of regenerating society. 
Once more, then, what is the form of govern- 
ment which the Nationalizers have in view? 



FALSE HOPES. 23 

It would be instructive, if they could furnish 
us, at the same time, with a sketch of the Land 
Department of the future, with its staff, the use 
which it will make of its funds, and the means 
by which it will be controlled and guarded 
against corruption. 

Why is property in land thus singled out for 
forfeiture ; and why are its holders selected for 
robbery and denunciation ? Because, say the 
Nationalizes, the land is the gift of God to 
mankind, and ought not to be appropriated 
by any individual owner. This would preclude 
appropriation by a nation, as well as appropri- 
ation by a man; but let that pass. In every 
article which we use, in the paper and type of 
the very book which advocates confiscation, 
there are raw materials and natural forces, 
which are just as much the gift of God as 
the land. God made the wool of which your 
coat is woven to grow on the sheep's back, and 



24 FALSE HOPES. 

endowed steam with the power to work the 
engine of the mill. Land is worth nothing, it 
is worth no more than the same extent of sea, 
till it is brought under cultivation by labor, 
which must be that of particular men. This, 
Canadian Colonization Companies are learning 
to their cost. If the State, in resuming posses- 
sion of the land, were compelled, like a land- 
lord in Ireland, to give compensation for im- 
provements, it would have to pay the full value 
of the land. The value is the creation of in- 
dividual labor and capital, in this case, as in the 
case of a manufacture. Circumstances, such 
as the growth of neighboring cities, may favor 
the landowner. Circumstances may favor any 
owner or producer. They may also be un- 
favorable to any owner or producer, as they 
have been of late to the landowners and agri- 
cultural producers in England ; and unless the 
State means to protect the holder of property 



FALSE HOPES. 25 

against misfortune it has surely no right to 
mulct him for his good luck. 

Nor is there anything specially unjust, or, 
in any way peculiar, about the mode in which 
the laborer on land is paid by the landowner or 
capitalist. Every laborer draws his pay from 
the moment when he begins his work. He 
draws it in credit, which enables him to get 
what he wants at the store, if not at once 
in cash. 

All land will, of course, fall under the same 
rule. The lot on which the mechanic has 
built his house, will be confiscated as wellj 
as the ranch. Not ■ only so, but the pro- 
duce, being equally with the land the gift of 
the Creator, will be exempt from the possibility 
of lawful ownership, and we shall be justified in 
repudiating our milk bills because cows feed 
on grass. 

Is Poverty the offspring of land-ownership or 



26 FALSE HOPES. 

the land laws? Any one who is not sailing 
on the wings of a theory can answer that 
question by looking at " the facts before his 
eyes. Poverty springs from many sources, per- 
sonal and general, — from indolence, infirmity, 
age, disease, intemperance ; from the failure 
of harvests and the decline of local trade ; from 
the growth of population beyond the means of 
subsistence. If the influence of the last cause 
is denied, let it be shown what impelled the 
migrations by which the earth has been peo- 
pled. Poverty has existed on a large scale 
in great commercial cities, which the land laws 
could but little affect, and even in cities like 
Venice, which had no land at all. The sup- 
posed increase of poverty itself is a fiction; 
at least, it is a fallacy. The number of people, 
in all civilized countries, living in plenty and 
comfort, has multiplied a hundredfold; and 
though, with a vast increase in numbers, there is 



FALSE HOPES. 27 

necessarily a certain increase of misfortune, 
even the poorest are not so ill off now as they 
were in the times of primitive barbarism, when 
famine stalked through the unsettled tribes, 
though there was no " monopoly " of land. 

We cannot all be husbandmen or personally 
make any use of land. What we want, as 
a community, is that the soil shall' produce 
as much food as possible, so that we may 
all live in plenty; and facts, as well as rea- 
son, show that a high rate of production can 
be attained only where tenure is secure. The 
greater the security of tenure, the more of 
his labor and capital the husbandman will 
put into the land, and. the larger the harvest 
will be. The spur which proprietorship lends 
to industry, is proverbially keen in the case of 
ownership of land. Originally, all ownership 
was tribal ; and if tribal ownership has, in all 
civilized countries, given place to private owner- 



28 FALSE HOPES. 

ship, this is the verdict of experience in favor 
of the present system. To suppose that a com- 
pany of land-grabbers aggressed upon the pub- 
lic property, and set up a monopoly in their 
own favor, is a fancy as baseless as the figments 
of Rousseau. That we have all a right to live 
upon the land, is a proposition, in one sense, 
absurd, unless the cities are to be abandoned, 
and we are to revert to the normal state ; in 
another sense, true, though subject to the neces- 
sary limit of population. But what the Nation- 
alizers practically propose is, that a good many 
of us, instead of living, shall, by reduced pro- 
duction, be deprived of bread and die. The 
first consequence of their universal confiscation 
Will be a universal disturbance of husbandry 
and thus while their age of improved morality 
will open with a general robbery, their age 
of felicity will open with a famine. 

Do they intend that the tenure of those 



FALSE HOPES, 29 

who are to hold the land under the State shall 
be secure ? If they do, nothing will have been 
gained; private property, and what, to excite 
odium, they call monopoly, though there are 
hundreds of thousands of proprietors, will return 
under another form. The only result of their 
grand reform will be a change of the name 
from freeholder to something expressive of con- 
cession in perpetuity by the State; and this 
will be obtained at the expense of a shock to 
agricultural industry, the probable effect of 
which, as has been already said, would be a 
famine. Nothing so practical as a plan for 
effecting the change without ruinous distur- 
bance appears ever to have entered their minds- 
But the truth is, that some of them almost 
openly revel in the prospect of widespread mis- 
chief. 

When we talk of Nationalizing, it is well to 
remember, that though territory is still national, 



3o ■•'■ FALSE HOPES. 

nations no longer live upon the produce of their 
own territory alone, and that the scope of plans 
of change must be enlarged so as to embrace 
the commercial world. 

A milder school of agrarian socialists pro- 
poses to confiscate only what it calls the un- 
earned increment of land — that is, any addi- 
tional value which, from time to time,, may 
accrue through the action of surrounding cir- 
cumstances and the general progress of the 
community, without exertion or outlay on the 
^part of the individual owner. Very sharp and 
skilful inspectors would be required to watch 
the increase and to draw the line. A question 
might also arise, whether, if unearned incre- 
ment is to be taken away, accidental decrement 
ought not to be made good. But here, again, 
we must ask, why landed property alone is 
to be treated in this way? Property of any 
kind may grow more valuable without effort or 



FALSE HOPES. 31 

outlay on the owner's part. Is the State to 
seize upon all the premium on stocks? A 
mechanic buys a pair of boots, the next day 
leather goes up; is the State to take toll of 
the mechanic's boots ? 

The fact is, that the vision of certain econo- 
mists is distorted, and their views are narrowed 
by hatred of the landlord class. Too many 
landlords are idle and useless members of 
society, especially in old countries, under the 
operation of lingering feudal laws ; but owners 
of other kinds of hereditary property are often 
idle and useless too. That the land should 
have been so improved as to be able to pay 
the owner as well as the cultivator, does the 
community no harm. This we see plainly, 
where the owner, instead of being a rich 
man, is a charitable institution. Nor, is any 
outcry raised, when the same person, being 
owner and cultivator, unites with the wages 



32 FALbE H-OPES. 

of one the revenue of the other. The be- 
lief that there is -some evil mystery in rent, 
has been "fostered by the metaphysical dis- 
quisitions of economists, who seem to have- 
been entrapped by their ignorance of any 
language but one. Rent is nothing but the 
hire ot land, and there is no more mystery 
about it than there is about the hire of a 
machine or a horse. In Greek, the word for 
the hire of land and of a chattel is the same. 

The desire of confiscating the property of 
landowners is, in European countries, closely 
connected with the objects of political revo- 
lution. But public spoliation, though it might 
commence, would not end here, nor would 
there be any ground for fixing this as its 
limit. Let a reason be given for confiscating 
real estate and the same reason will hold good 
for confiscating personal estate, the laborer's 
wages, and, we may add, the copyright of the 



FALSE HOPES, 33 

author and the plant of the journalist who 
courts popularity or panders to envious malig- 
" nity by advocating the pillage of his neighbor. 
If property is theft, the property in the Savings 
Bank is theft like the rest. 

Peasant proprietorship is as much opposed 
as anything can possibly be to nationalization 

. of land. So the Nationalizes, when they ap- 
proach the peasant proprietor, speedily find. 
But there are some who look to it with un- 
bounded hope. The political arguments in 
its favor are well known; among them is the 
adamantine resistance which it offers to com- 
munism of all kinds. Economical considera- 

1 tions are fatally against it, since a farmer on 
the great scale in Dakota will raise as much 
grain with a hundred laborers as is raised by 
ten times the number of French peasants. So- 
cially there are arguments both ways ; but the 
life of the peasant in France, and even in 



34 FALSE HOPES. 

Switzerland, is hard, and almost barbarous* 
while he can scarcely tide over a bad harvest 
without falling into the money-lender's hands. 
On this continent, where the people are more 
educated, their tendency seems to be, when 
they can, to exchange life on the farm, which 
they find dull and lonely, for the more social 
life of the city. Perhaps the time may come 
when agriculture will be carried on scientifi- 
cally, and upon a large scale, to furnish food 
for an urban population. The life of the staff 
on a great farm will not be unsocial, while 
it will exercise far higher intelligence than 
does spade labor, which, in truth, calls for 
no intelligence at all. 

Liberation of labor from the extortion of 
the capitalist is the hope of those who set 
on foot co-operative works. These have hitherto 
failed from inability to wait for the market, 









FALSE HOPES. 


35 


and 


tide over 


bad times, 


from want of 


a guid. 


ing 


hand, 


and 


from the 


unwillingness 


of the 



artisan to resign his independence and his 
liberty of moving from place to place ; though 
the last cause is less operative with the sociable 
and submissive Frenchman than with his sturdy- 
English compeer. Capital, spelt with a big 
initial letter, swells into a malignant giant — ■ 
the personal enemy of labor; spelt in the 
natural way, it is simply that with which labor 
starts on any enterprise, and without which 
no labor can start at all, unless it be that of 
the savage grubbing roots with his nails. It 
includes a spade as well as factory plant that 
has cost millions ; it includes everything laid 
out in education or training. We might as 
well talk of emancipating ourselves from the 
tyranny of food or air. Every co-operative 
association must have some capital to begin 
with, either of its own or borrowed, the lender, 



36 FALSE HOPES. 

in the latter case, representing the power of 
large capital just as much as any employer. 
The aggregation of great masses of capital 
in one man's hands is a social danger, and one 
against which legislators ought, by all fair 
means, to guard, though it is sometimes not 
without a good aspect ; witness the New York 
Central Railroad, which could hardly have been 
brought to its present state by managers under 
the necessity of providing an equally large 
dividend every year. But the operation of the 
joint-stock principle, it seems, is evidently pro- 
ducing a gradual change in this respect. It 
will often be found that the rate of profit made 
by a great capitalist is far from excessive, 
though his total gains may be large. Mr. 
Brassey's total gains were. large, but the rate of 
his profits did not exceed five per cent, while it 
is very certain that without him ten thousand 
workmen, destitute of capital, scientific skill, and 



FALSE HOPES. 37 

powers of command, could not have built the 
Victoria Bridge. Co-operative farming seems 
\ to hold out more hope than co-operative man- 
ufactures. Still it would need capital and a 
head. 

To get rid of competition, and substitute for 
it fraternity among workers, is the other aim of 
co-operation. But the co-operative societies 
must compete with each other, while, as buyers, 
having regard to cheapness in their purchases, 
they will themselves be always ratifying the 
principle of competition, and, at the same time, 
that of paying the workman not on the frater- 
nal principle, but according tp the amount and 
value of his work. Every heart must be touched 
by fraternity and wish that co-operation 
could take the place of competition, which, in 
its grinding severity, is too like many other 
things in this hard world. But, after all, choose 
any manufactured article ; consider the multi- 



38 FALSE HOPES. 

tude of people who in various trades and differ- 
ent countries have co-operated in the pro- 
duction, yet have not competed with each 
other ; and you will see that, even as things are, 
there is more of co-operation than of competi- 
tion among the workers. 

Co-operative stores have nothing but a mis- 
leading name in common with co-operative 
works. They simply bring the consumer into 
direct relation with the producer, and give him 
the benefit of wholesale prices, which may be 
perfectly well done, so long as the officers of 
the association can be trusted to exercise for 
the society the same degree of skill and in. 
tegrity in the selection of goods which the 
retail tradesman exercises for himself. Stores, 
however, of the ordinary kind, but on a large 
scale, like that of A. T. Stewart, with low 
prices, and, best of all, ready-money payment, 
afford the practical benefits of co-operation. 



FALSE HOPES. 39 

From Unionism and strikes, again, too much 
has been hoped by the workingman. They 
have not seldom been the means of enabling 
him to make a fairer bargain with the Master, 
and they are perfectly lawful ; though, the com- 
munity, to save itself from Unionist tyranny and 
extortion, must steadfastly guard the liberties of 
the Non-Union men. But the idea that they 
can, to an unlimited, or, even, to a great extent 
raise wages, is unfounded. The screw may be 
put upon the Master, but it cannot be put 
upon the community; and it is the commu- 
nity, not the Master, that is the real employer. 
The community which buys the goods ulti- 
mately settles the price, and, thereby, finally 
determines the wages of the producers, not- 
withstanding any momentary extortion ; nor 
can it be constrained, by striking, in the end 
to give a cent more than it chooses and can 
afford. By strikes, carried beyond a certain 



4 FALSE HOPES. 

point, capital may be driven away, and the 
trade may be ruined — as trades have been 
ruined — but the rate of wages will not be 
raised. The Master, though commonly taken 
for the employer, is the agent through whom 
the community pays the workmen. Towards 
the men, his commercial relation is really that 
of a partner, taking out of the earnings of 
the business the share which is due for capital, 
risk, and guidance. Masters are beginning to 
mark this fact in a kindly way, by giving shares 
in the concern or premiums to the men, while 
they retain the guidance in their own hands. 

Strikers ought to remember that they are, 
themselves, buyers as well as producers, and, 
therefore, employers as well as employed; so 
that if they can strike against the rest of the 
community, the other trades can strike against 
them, and wages being thus raised all round, 
nobody will gain anything. They ought also 



FALSE HOPES. 41 

to remember that they are parts of an in- 
dustrial .organism, on the well-being of which, 
as a whole, that of all its members depends, 
and which is deranged, as a whole, by the 
disturbance .of any portion of it. A strike 
in one section of a trade throws out of work 
hundreds of men, women, and children, in the 
other sections. A strike in certain depart- 
ments, such as that of railways, will stop the 
wheels of civilization ; in others, it will cause 
incalculable loss and suffering. Suppose, when 
an artisan had been hurt by the machinery, 
the surgeons were to put their heads out of 
the window and say they were on strike. Arti- 
sans are in the habit of speaking of themselves 
exclusively as workingmen. Everybody who is 
not idle is a workingman, whether he works 
with his brain or with his hands and whatever 
part he may play in the service of a varied 
and complex civilization. 



42 FALSE HOPES, 

Then, there is the hope of vastly increas- 
ing the wealth of the world in general, and 
that of the artisans in particular, by means 
of an inconvertible Paper Currency. Of this 
illusion, it may be said, that not even the 
wildest dreams of the alchemist, or of those 
adventurers who sailed in quest of an Eldo- 
rado, were a more extraordinary instance of 
the human power of self-deception. Among 
the champions of paper currency there are* 
no doubt, knaves — many a one — who know 
very well what they are about, and whose 
aim is to defraud the creditor, public and 
private, by paying off the debt with depre- 
ciated paper, an operation, the sweetness of 
which, under the Legal Tender Act, has been 
already tasted. But there are also honest 
enthusiasts, not a few, who sincerely believe 
that a commercial millenium could be opened 
by merely issuing a flood of promissory notes 



FALSE HOPES. 43 

and refusing payment. This prodigious fal- 
lacy has its origin simply in the equivocal use 
of a word. We have got into the habit of 
applying the name money to paper bank bills 
as well as to coin. The paper bill, being cur- 
rent as well as the coin, we fancy that with 
both alike we buy goods. But the truth is 
that we buy only with the coin, to which, 
alone, the name money ought to be applied. 
The bank bill is like a cheque — not money 
itself, but an order and a security for a sum 
of money, which, the bill being payable on 
demand, can be drawn by the holder from 
the bank, or the government, when he pleases. 
When a man receives a bank bill, he has 
virtually so much gold as the bill represents 
put to his account at the bank by which the 
bill is issued. The bill is a promissory note, 
and the bank in increasing the number of 
its bills, like a trader who increases the num- 



44 FALSE HOPES. 

ber of his promissory notes, adds^ not to its 
assets, but to its liabilities. 

In the slip of paper itself there is no value or 
purchasing power; nor can any legislature 
put value or purchasing power into it. Green- 
backers point to the case of postage stamps' 
into which, they say, value has been put by 
legislation. But a postage stamp is simply 
a receipt for a certain sum paid to the gov. 
ernment in gold, and, in consideration of which, 
the government undertakes to carry the letter 
to which the receipt is affixed. 

No paper money, it is believed, has ever 
yet been issued except in the promissory form, 
v pledging the issuer to pay in gold, upon de- 
mand, so that each bill, hitherto, has borne 
upon the face of it a flat denial and abjura- 
tion of the Greenback theory. Suppose the 
promissory form to be discarded, and the bill 
to be simply inscribed "one dollar," as the 



FALSE HOPES. 45 

Fiat-money men propose, what would " dollar " 
mean? It would mean, say the Greenback- 
ers, a certain proportion of the wealth of the 
country, upon which, as an aggregate, the 
currency would be based. What proportion ? 
Let us know what we have in our purse, 
and what we can get or exchange for the 
paper dollar on presenting it at a store ; other- 
wise commerce cannot go on. This, however, 
is not the most serious difficulty. The most 
serious difficulty is that while the coin, which 
a convertible bank bill represents, is the pro- 
perty of the bank of issue, the aggregate wealth 
of the country is not the property of the Gov- 
ernment, but of a multitude of private owners. 
The Government is the possessor of nothing 
except the public domain, and a taxing power, 
the exercise of which it is bound to confine 
to the actual necessities of the State. la issu- 
ing an order for a loaf of bread, a coat, or a 



46 FALSE HOPES. 

leg of mutton, to be taken from the possessions 
of the community at large, it would be simply- 
signing a ticket of spoliation. 

Ask the Fiat-money men whether they are 
prepared to take their own money for taxes $ 
and you will get an ambiguous reply. Some of 
them have an inkling of the fatal truth, and 
answer that the taxes must be paid in gold. 
The faith of others is more robust. But it has 
been reasonably inquired why the government 
if it can with a printing machine coin money 
at its will should pester citizens for taxes at all. 

That the foreigner will take the national fiat- 
money, nobody seems to pretend. Yet, if 
there is real value in it, why should he not ? 
All the better, say the Greenbackers ; if he will 
not take our money, he will . have to take our 
goods. Then, you will have to take his goods, 
and the commercial world will be reduced 
again to barter without a common measure 



FALSE HOPES. 47 

of value, which would not be a great advance 
in convenience or in civilization. Besides, 
trade is not merely a direct interchange of 
commodities between two countries; it is cir- 
culation of them among all countries — the 
United States sending cotton to England, En- 
gland, calico to China, and China, tea to the 
United States, which, without a common stand- 
ard of value, would be next to impossible. 

In one sense, of course, government can, 
by its fiat, put value into paper. It can make 
the paper Legal Tender for debts — in other 
words, it can issue licenses of repudiation, 
and these licenses will retain a value till all 
existing debts have been repudiated, and all 
existing creditors cheated ; but, from that time 
their value will cease, since everybody, from 
the moment of their issue, will refuse to ad- 
vance money, or sell on credit. 

In all the cases known to economical his- 



48 FALSE BOjl ES. 

tory in which governments have issued in- 
convertible paper, depreciation has ensued, and 
such value as it has retained, has been ex 
actly in proportion to the hope of resump- 
tion. When cash payments were suspended 
in England, at the crisis of the French war, the 
depreciation was comparatively small, simply 
because the hope of resumption was strong. 
The guillotine was plied in vain to arrest the 
rapid fall of French Assignats, though these 
were not fiat money, but bonds secured on 
the national domains, which were good secur- 
ity for the original issue. Confederate paper 
money, with the defeat of the Confederacy, 
lost the whole of its value, or retained a 
shadow of it only, through stock-jobbing tricks. 
In San Domingo, a gentleman having tendered 
a silver American dollar in payment for his 
coffee, received from the surprised and de- 
lighted keeper of the coffee-house an armful 



FALSE HOPES. 4 49 

of paper change. Washington, while he was 
saving his country, was being robbed through 
the operation of inconvertible paper currency 
of part of his private estate; and the effects, 
moral and political, as well as^ commercial, of 
the system, during the Revolutionary war, were 
such that Tom Paine, no timid or squeamish 
publicist, recommended that death should be 
made the penalty of any proposal to renew it. 
In all cases where specie payment has been 
resumed, the State, in addition to the loss 
incurred through disturbance and demoraliza- 
tion of commerce, has paid heavily for the 
temporary suspension, because its credit has 
been suspended at the same time, and it has 
had to borrow on terms far worse than those 
which it could have obtained in the money 
market, had its integrity been preserved. 

The value is in the gold. It is in exchange 
for the gold that, whenever a sale takes place, 



50 FALSE HOPES. 

the commodity is given. Trade was originally 
barter, and, in the sense of being always an 
interchange of things deemed really equiva- 
lent in value, it is barter still. I give a cow 
for three sheep, and then give the three sheep 
for a horse, which it is my ultimate object 
to purchase. What the three sheep here do 
in a single transaction, is done in transactions 
generally by gold. This fundamental and vital 
fact is obscured by the language even of some 
economists who are sound in principle, but who 
speak of the precious metals as though their 
value was conventional, and like that of sym- 
bols or counters. It is nothing of the kind. 
The first man who gave anything in exchange 
for gold or silver, must have done so because 
he deemed gold or silver really valuable; so 
does the last. The precious metals, probably, 
attracted at first by their beauty, their rarity, 
and their intrinsic qualities; then, they were 



FALSE HOPES. 51 

felt to have special advantages as mediums 
of exchange and universal standards of value, 
on account of their durability, their uniformity, 
their portability, their capability of receiving 
a stamp, of being, divided with exactness, and 
of being fused again with ease. Thus they, 
and, in the upshot, gold, displaced all the 
other articles, such as copper, iron, leather, 
shells, which, in primitive times, or under 
pressure of circumstances, were adopted as 
mediums of exchange and standards of value. 
But they have now the additional value de- 
rived from immemorial and, immutable pre- 
scription, which would render it practically 
impossible to oust them, even if a substance, 
promising greater advantages for the purpose, 
could be found. The French Republicans tried 
to change the era, and make chronology begin 
with the first year of the Republic, instead 
of beginning with the birth of Christ. But 



52 FALSE HOPE'S. 

they found that they were pulling at a tree, 
the roots of which were too completely en- 
twined with all existing customs and ideas, 
to be torn up. It would not be less difficult 
to change the medium of exchange and stand- 
ard of value over the whole commercial world. 
A value which is moral, or dependent on opin- 
ion, is not the less real ; the value of diamonds, 
as symbols of wealth and rank, may be de- 
pendent, not only on opinion, but on fancy, yet, 
it is real so long as it lasts. An enormous 
nn£ of gold would, of course, by putting an 
end to its rarity, destroy its value ; this is 
a risk which commerce runs, but it does not 
seem to be great. Any inconvenience that 
might arise from the bulk and weight of the 
precious metals, is indefinitely diminished, while 
in use they are vastly, and in an increasing 
degree, economized by the employment of bank 
bills and other paper securities, for gold, 



FALSE HOPES. 53 

which are currency, though money they are 
not. 

There ought to be no such thing as Legal 
Tender, even in the case of convertible paper 
currency, either on the part of the govern- 
ment or on the part of private banks. It is 
rank injustice to compel us to take anybody's 
paper as gold. If the government is solvent 
and its security is good, the paper is sure to 
be taken in preference to carrying about a 
weight of specie. Legal Tender confuses the 
ideas of the people, shakes commercial morality, 
and prepares the way for the attempts of the 
Fiat-money men, and for- all the mischief which 
they breed. 

The last ditch of Greenbackism is Bimetal- 
lism, or the proposal to place silver on a 
par, as a standard, with gold, which can hardly 
fail to commend itself to Silver Kings. To 



54 FALSE HOPES. 

force people to take silver for gold, would be 
to rob them of the difference ; and such a 
measure, if adopted by the State, would be 
a partial repudiation. Equity would require 
that the salaries of all politicians should, first 
of all, be paid in the baser metal. To have 
two standards is to have none, But it is 
proposed that a convention of nations shall 
be called to fix the relation of value between 
gold and silver. How is it possible for any 
convention of nations to fix, and to keep fixed, 
the relation of any two commodities, when, 
among other determining circumstances, the 
rate of production varies from year to year ? 
This is the problem, without a practical solu- 
tion of which it is useless to waste any more 
thought upon the question. A great number 
of different articles, as has been already said» 
have been used from time to time by tribes 
or nations, as mediums of exchange and stand- 



FALSE HOPES. 55 

ards of value; but the choice of the commer- 
cial world gradually settled down upon gold, 
which is now the medium and standard of 
the great trading communities, silver being 
used as change. India and China adhere to 
silver, as some more barbarous races adhere 
to cowries or wampum, and to their custom 
commerce has, in dealing with them, to bend — 
not without very great inconvenience, as any 
one who has watched Anglo-Indian finance 
must know. So long as silver is used only 
as change, a rough equivalent is sufficient. 
To ask communities whose wealth is stored 
in gold to go into convention for the purpose 
of depreciating gold by reducing it to the 
level of silver, is to presume upon a blind- 
ness, or weakness, seldom found in commer- 
cial minds. The movement, accordingly, ap- 
pears to make but little way. 



56 FALSE HOPES. 

With belief in Fiat-money are often com- 
bined fancies about the tyranny of banks, and 
a desire to wreck and plunder them by an 
exercise of the legislative power, or to seize 
their business and profits, and place them in the 
hands of the government. There is nothing, 
indeed, of which the demagogues are fonder 
than attacking the banks, and they are able, 
in this case, to appeal with effect to popular 
envy — always the breath of the demagogue's 
life. Especially they propose to take away 
the circulation of bank bills, and the profits 
belonging to it. 

Banks are vital organs of a commercial com- 
munity, which, in seeking their destruction, 
would show as much wisdom as a man would 
show in seeking the destruction of his own 
heart or lungs. They perform for us three in- 
dispensable functions, of which the first is the 
safe-keeping of our money, which, otherwise, we 



FALSE HOPES. 57 

should have to keep in our houses at our own 
risk, as is still the practice of the ignorant 
French peasant, who hides his hoard in a hole 
in the wall. The second function is that of econ- 
omizing gold, and at the same time sparing us 
the inconvenience of carrying about a mass of 
specie, by issuing bank bills, which, being 
secured upon the whole estate of a chartered 
corporation, may, in general, be accepted with- 
out scrutiny, and thus form a paper currency, 
though it can never be too often repeated that 
they are not money. It is rather hard that 
those who are always declaiming against metal- 
lic money for its cumbrousness, and because, as 
they say, it lies dead and inert, should fail to 
acknowledge the service rendered by the banks 
of issue, in thus giving the metal wings, and 
making it do its work for commerce in a thou- 
sand places, while it is locally laid up in one. 
The third function, which is the offspring of 



58 FALSE HOPES. 

comparatively modern times, is that of enabling 
us to trade on credit. This, the banks do, by 
discounting paper for the trader, whose re- 
sources they have examined, or are assured of, 
and whose commercial character they approve^ 
In this way, they both substantiate and regulate 
credit, neither of which could be done without 
their agency, merely by the representations of 
the trader himself, or by private inquiry into his 
means. To stop the action of the banks in this 
department, would be to render trading on 
credit impossible, to arrest all enterprise, and 
to bring the world back to that state of com- 
mercial barbarism which, in truth, seems to be 
the goal of the economical destructives. 

The financial Nihilist grudges the banks the 
profits of their circulation, and wishes to trans- 
fer them to that which he calls the State, but 
which it is necessary always to bear in mind is» 
in fact, simply the men who compose the gov- 



FALSE HOPES. 59 

ernment. Why not grudge the banks the 
profits of the discount business, and propose to 
transfer that to government in the same way ? 
Why not do the same with all other trades by 
which profit, and often unfair profit, is made? 
Why not make the issuing of bills of exchange, 
or promissory notes ; why not make the supply- 
ing of the community with boots or dry goods ; 
a monopoly in the hands of the government ? 
What is there about the money trade in partic- 
ular to make us desire that it should be put 
into the power of the politicians ? Judging by 
experience, it would be about the last branch of 
commerce on which we should wish them to lay 
their grasp. 

It is the business of government to put its 
stamp on the coin, in order to assure the com- 
munity that the coin is of the right weight and 
fineness. This public authorities alone can sat- 
isfactorily do, and they may now be trusted to 



60 FALSE HOPES. 

do it, though, in former times, kings were in the 
habit of defrauding the subject by debasing the 
coin, a proceeding which combined the guilt of 
theft with that of forgery. But here the duty 
and the usefulness of government in regard to 
the currency end. The volume of bank bills 
issued ought to be regulated, like that of all 
other commercial paper, by the requirements of 
the day — that is, by the number and amount of 
the transactions, and it will be so regulated 
while it is in the hands of the banks, which will 
not fail to issue all the bills for which there is 
real need, while, if they issue more than are 
needed, the bills will begin to come back upon 
their hands. But government can no more de- 
cide what amount of bills is required than it 
can decide how many promissory notes or bills 
of exchange ought, at any given moment, to be 
afloat. Setting government to settle the circu- 
lation of paper, is having the barometer regu- 



, FALSE HOPES. 61 

lated by superior wisdom without reference to 
atmospheric pressure. 

The English Bank Charter Act was the 
offspring of the alarm caused by the failure of a 
number of private banks of issue. It would 
have been better to adopt proper safeguards in 
the way of inspection and other precautionary 
regulations. The Act has gone into operation 
only to a limited extent, having put an end to 
the existence of a few only of the private banks 
of issue, all of which it was intended gradually 
to extinguish. It has been three times sus- 
pended at a commercial crisis, each suspension 
being attended with all the inconvenience and 
injustice of arbitrary intervention ; and its gen- 
eral effect, whenever tightness is felt, is to pro- 
duce a sort of nervous contraction, which itself 
tends to the acceleration of a crisis. It ought 
not to be forgotten that the Bank of England, 
though employed by the government, is quite 



62 FALSE HOPES. 

a distinct institution ; while, in England, the 
commercial interest is so strong that no poli- 
tician in power could venture to tamper with 
the bank or its operations. Once more the. 
working of an economical measure depends 
partly on the circumstances of the country. 

Ordinary banks, being private institutions, 
are amenable to the law: in truth, there is 
nothing of which the politicians are fonder than 
harassing and oppressing them with legislation. 
But a party government, supported by a major- 
ity, is its own law, and can do whatever its 
need or its cupidity inspires, without regard to 
the interests of commerce. Even the least dis- 
honest of such governments, when in want of 
money,tha(nksnothing of issuing a flood of legal 
tender currency, without reference to the state 
of the money market, a proceeding which is in 
the nature of a forced loan. Would commerce 
have an hour of security, or be able to conduct 



FALSE HOPES. 63 

any of her operations in peace and confidence, 
if the hand of demagogism were all the time 
upon her heartstrings ? 

Bank bills, though not legal tender, cannot, 
in the ordinary course of trade, be refused, 
unless there is some public reason for mistrust- 
ing the solvency of the bank.. This' is the 
ground for subjecting this particular class of 
commercial' companies to special legislation ; 
and it is the sole ground ; there would, other- 
wise, be no justification for an interference with 
the trade in money more than with any other 
trade. Nor has the government the slightest 
right to compel the banks to take its bonds, as 
the condition of permitting them to pursue an 
honest and indispensable traffic, or to blackmail 
them in any other way. To do so is confisca- 
tion, and upon confiscation retribution never 
fails to attend. It is not the bank, but 
the demaffosfue, that on this continent is the 






64 FALSE HOPES 

pest of industry, as well as of public affairs and 
morality in general. On the other hand, the 
stockholders of banks must not suppose that 
they, of all investors in commercial enterprises, 
are entitled to the intervention of government 
when their affairs are mismanged by directors 
of their own choosing. If they invoke such 
aid, they will once more practically point the 
moral of the fable of the horse and .the stag. 

The notion that society is an organism or 
growth has perhaps been carried too far; we 
have an individuality and a power of acting on 
the general frame, which the parts of an organ- 
ism have not. But this view is, at least, nearer 
the truth than the fancy which underlies all 
Socialism, that society can be completely meta- 
morphosed by the action of the State — an 
imaginary power outside all personalities, supe- 
rior to all special interests, and free from all class 
passions. Nothing, indeed, can be less free 



FALSE HOPES. 65 

from class passions than the movements which 
have been here passed in review. Social hatred 
is a bad reformer, and the struggles to which it 
has given birth have almost always brought to 
the community, and even to the most suffering 
members of it, ten times as much loss as gain. 
To speak of Protection, would be open- 
ing a wide subject, and one which, perhaps, 
scarcely falls within the scope of this paper. 
There are men, sensible in other things, who 
imagine that they can increase the wealth of 
a country by taxation. So long as govern- 
ments and armaments are maintained on the 
present scale of expenditure, every country 
will need import duties, an4 must have its 
tariff. Absolute free trade, therefore, is at 
present out of the question, and the differ- 
ent tariffs must be regulated according to 
the circumstances and the special industries 
of each community. Every nation will claim 



65 FALSE HOPES. 

this right. England, who has her tariff like 
the rest, wisely lets in free the raw mate- 
rials of her special industries and the food 
of her innumerable workmen, while she taxes 
finished articles of luxury, such as tea, wine 
and tobacco. Free traders, British free traders, 
especially, have left this too much out of 
sight, and have compromised their theory 
by that error. But, that taxation can add 
to wealth ; that governments can increase pro- 
duction by forcing capital and labor out of 
their natural channels ; that the interest of 
the^ people will be promoted by forbidding 
them to buy the best and cheapest article 
wherever it can be found; are notions which, 
if reason did not sufficiently confute them, have 
been confuted by experience. Under the free 
system, the industries of England have been 
developed, and her wealth has increased out 
of all proportion to the growth of her popu- 



FALSE HOPES. 67 

lation, and to an extent perfectly unrivalled. 
The verdict of economical history through all 
the ages is the same. Nobody proposes to 
draw Customs lines across the territory of any 
nation, and the commercial advantages of free- 
dom of exchange know no political limit, 
though in passing from nation to nation, fiscal 
necessity intervenes. The workman does not 
gain by Protection ; he is only transferred to 
an artificial industry from a natural industry, 
which would otherwise develop itself, and in 
which, as it would be more remunerative, 
employment would be more abundant. The 
master manufacturer is the only man who 
gains ; to him the community, under the Pro- 
tective system, pays tribute; accordingly, he 
is generally a Protectionist, and uses not argu- 
ment alone, but the Lobby, and influences 
of all sorts, to keep up the tariff ; he will do 
his utmost to encourage national expenditure, 



68 FALSE HOPES. 

rather than taxes shall go down. Nor can 
he be much blamed, when the government 
has induced him to put his capital into the 
favored trade, and stake his future on the, 
continuance of the iavor. Political or social 
motives there may conceivably be for Protec- 
tion, as well as for any other sacrifice of 
commercial interest, such as war itself; but the 
commercial sacrifice is a fact which cannot 
be denied. To foster by protective duties 
or bonuses infant industries, which may after- 
wards sustain themselves, and perhaps draw 
emigration to a new country, is in itself a 
perfectly rational and legitimate policy, if the 
nation can really keep the experiment in its 
own hands. But artificial interests are created, 
a Ring is formed, and the nation loses control 
over its tariff. Such, at least, is the case with 
communities governed as are those of this 
continent ; and again, in concluding, we would 



FALSE HOPES. 69 

strive to impress the necessity of regarding 
the field of political economy as a region not 
in the air but on the earth, and of treating the 
society with which the economical legislator 
deals, its tendencies, its capabilities and its 
forces, as they really are. The connection of 
political economy with politics is a blank page 
in the treatises of the great writers. 

Steady industry aided by the ever-growing 
powers of practical science is rapidly augment- 
ing wealth. Thrift, increased facilities for sav- 
ing and for the employment of small capitals 
will promote equality of distribution. Let 
governments see that labor is allowed to enjoy 
its full earnings, untaxed by war, waste or pro- 
tective tariffs. For the unfortunate, of whom, 
in a great community, however prosperous, 
there must always be some, charity, which is 
daily becoming more active and bountiful, will 
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THE WIDOWER. 
VII. PARIS, IRISH, AND EASTERN SKETCHES. 
VIII. BARRY LYNDON, GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND, ETC.: 

Barry Lyndon. I Sketches and Travels in London. 

Great Hoggarty Diamond. | Character Sketches. 

Men's Wives. 

IX. ROUNDABOUT PAPERS, THE FOUR GEORGES, ETC. : 



Roundabout Papers. 
The Four Georges. 
English Humorists. 



Second Funeral of Napoleon. 
Critical Reviews. 
Selections from Punch. 



X. BURLESQUES, YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS, ETC.: 



Novels et Eminent Hands. 
Jeames's Story. 
Adventures of Major Gahagan. 
A Legend of the Rhine. 
Rebecca and Rowena. 
The History of the next French 
Revolution. 



Cox's Diary. 

Yellowflush Papers. 

Fitsboodle Papers. 

The Wolves and the Lamb. 

The Bedford Row Conspiracy. 

A Little Dinner at Timmins's. 

The Fatal Boots. 



Little Travels. 
XI. CHRISTMAS BOOKS, BOOK OF SNOBS, AND BALLADS.: 



Mrs. Perkins's Ball. 
Dr. Birch. 
Our Street. 



I The Kickleburys on the Rhine. 

The Rcse and the Ring. 
| Book of Snobs. 

IAL1.ADS. 



New York: JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 14 & 16 Vesey St, 



"It Is easy to praise this somewhat remarkable book, and still easier to 
find fault tvith it. The one thing which it is impossible to do is to ignore 
it."— New York Times. 

THE MODERN HAG-ART 

A NOVEI19 

New, Revised Edition, 764 Pages. 2 Vols, in One. Cloth, $1.50. 
The popular demand for a cheaper and more popular form 
of this book has led the author to no issue it, putting the original 
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although the work has been before the public but a few months. 
AW AMERICAN BOOK, 

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'•If there is love for the South, there is no hatred for the North 

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"A noble story, written brilliantly, and of undeniable originality and power." 
—Louisville Cowier- Journal. 

A GENUINE NOViEIi. 

" Of thrilling, intense interest. « . . Mr. Clay has disclosed a master's 
power; none but. clean hands and a pure heart could have so brought to light 
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Hag for one moment."— San Francisco Chronicle. 

Mailed postpaid on receipt of price, by 

IOEN W. E«© ViEE.ii €©., 1 4 Sc 1 6 Vesey St., New YorK. 



IB" PM5S3.— By tho author of "THE MODERN 
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JOHN WYNNE'S WIVES* 

1 Vol. 12mo. Paper Covers, 20 Centa, 

14 & K3 Vcsey Street, New ITov'k.. 



" Dr. Newton has had given to him the spiritual 
sense of what people 'wanted, and this he has rev- 
erently, clearly and definitely furnished." — Boston 
Herald, March 17. 



THE RIGHT AND WRONG 

OSES OF THE BIBLE. 

By Rev. R. Heber Newton. 

No. 83, "Lovell's Library," Paper Covers, 20 Cents; Also 
in Cloth, Red Edges, 75 Cents. 



" Dr. Newton has not separated his heart from his head in these 
religious studies, and has thus been preserved from the mistakes 
which a purely critical mind might have been led." — N. T. Times, 
March 12. 

"Those who wish to abuse Dr. Newton should do so before 
reading his lectures, as, after reading them, they may find it quite 
impossible to do so." — N. T, Star, March 11. 

"It is impossible to read these sermons without high admiration 
of the author's courage ; of his honesty, his reverential spirit a his 
wide and careful reading, and his true conservatism." — American 
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For sale by all Newsdealers and Booksellers. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 



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"Dr. Newton has had given to him the spiritual 
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THE RIGHT AND WRONG 

USES OF THE BIB 



No. 83, 



By Rev. R. Heber Newton. 

Lovell's Library," Paper Covers, 20 Cents; 
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" Dr. Newton has not separ ,ted his heart from his head in these 
religious studies, and has thus been preserved from the mistakes 
which a purely critical mind might have been led." — JV- T. Times, 
March 12. 

"Those who wish to abuse Dr. Newton should do so before 
reading his lectures, as, after reading them, they may find it quite 
impossible to do so."— N. T. Star, March 11. 

"It is impossible to read these sermons vithout high admiration 
of the author's courage ; of his honesty, his reverential spirit, his 
wide and careful reading, and his true conservatism," — American 
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JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 






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